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Re: [RC] New Poll up - Joe LongOn Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:30:36 -0500, Jim Holland <lanconn@xxxxxxx> wrote: Joe Long wrote: Really? You could have fooled me! Until last year, the AERC BOD and the Vet Committee would not even admit to the members that horse deaths even happened and denied them information on the ones that did! I'm getting tired of all this bullshit. That is totally false. What do you hope to gain with a wild claim like that? Where the Hell were you? For one thing, I was on the Board from 1980 to 1994, and worked hard for better equine safety. I was one of those who worked hard to adopt "fit to continue" as a finishing criteria. Do you know there were individuals who argued that if a horse crossed the finish line first, then dropped dead ten feet past it, the rider was still the winner of the ride and should get his trophies, points and miles? You want to see my letters to the Executive Director that went unanswered? My emails to AERC? My posts? The refusal to send me Vet Committee Reports until I went public on Ridecamp? The note from a member of the BOD who told me I had "made the worst mistake of my life" by posting on this issue? Documented! I gottem all! I can back it up, so don't tell me it's bullshit! I don't hope to gain anything except some concern for the welfare of the horse. Hell, maybe I'll write a book...isn't that what I'm supposed to do? I can't say what you're supposed to do. I do not believe what I've seen you doing is contributing to improving equine safety. If there is improvement being made, IMHO, it's happening too damn slow! Better slow improvement than fast ill-considered changes that make things worse!!!! "Slow" is relative. When horses are dying at rides and is doing NOTHING, it's time to try SOMETHING.... There's more of the bullshit ... the outrageous claim that the AERC is doing "nothing." Many of us have been doing "something" for years. Were you around in the "crash and burn" days before vet gates, before CRI's and taking temperatures, when a horse had an hour to reach a pulse rate of 72, and there was no post-finish requirement at all? ... When I was competing in the SE and working with rides and the SERA we had periods of several years without a fatality, a fact I am quite proud of. But there were tragic fatalities in some years, including multiple deaths in a single year. Short-term statistics on low-frequency events don't really mean very much. And a decade is short-term in this issue, and ten is small, yes. 7 years is short term? Ten is small? Now, IMHO, THAT is bullshit! Your saying that just shows that you don't understand statistics. I'm a poker player and I've seen the working of probability and statistics up close and personal. Yes, seven years is short-term in an issue like this. You have been saying the deaths are increasing, when they have been about ten in each of the last two years. I don't have the statistics to know if that is an increase, but at any rate it would take more than a few years of continuing increases to know that it was really a trend. Finally, ten in the entire U.S., given the number of rides and riders, is not a large number. Even one is more than we want, but ten does not mean the sky is falling. You know, insurance companies have good statisticians, and they don't like to lose money. Yet they happily insure endurance horses. Tell you something? ... You can "choose" not to believe it, but as long as there are endurance rides in any numbers there will sometimes be fatalaties, both horses and riders (we have had some rider deaths, too, do you know that? One happened in the Southeast). Just as, as long as we drive cars, there will be fatal auto crashes. To borrow your own words, that's "apples and oranges". Really? It seems to me they are nearly identical. ... There has been far too much bombast, smoke, arm-waving, mud-slinging, chest-beating and hypocrisy spewn out on this list on this issue for too long, most of it from about three people. You aren't helping, and if you really want to help, shut the hell up and try to learn something from those who've actually been working with the problem for a while. Over the last couple of years, I think most people on Ridecamp would agree that I have been "working on the problem for a while". And who might those people you are referring to be? If the shoe fits ... although Howard was who I had most in mind. ....and were I not a gentleman and a Marine, I might have more to say on your suggestion. I don't expect you to take it. You are on a Holy Mission, and you believe you Know More and Care More than the rest of us. At least that's how you come off. -- Joe Long jlong@xxxxxxxx http://www.rnbw.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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